Hometeam: Oxford drops Auburn as Thanksgiving football rival after 42 years

After 42 seasons, the Thanksgiving Day football rivalry between Oxford High and Auburn High is history.

Officials from both schools met Friday morning and Oxford High informed Auburn High the Pirates were ending the game that has been played since 1971.

Instead, Oxford will face Sutton High – which begins its first season of football next fall – while Auburn, winners of five straight Super Bowls, is left without a Thanksgiving opponent.

“Nobody wanted to see it go and it's not like something we hoped for,” Oxford athletic director John Doldoorian said. “We've been talking about it for the past six years as games became more lopsided. We had a meeting this morning and the hard part is that the Auburn kids may not have a game and everyone feels bad about that. You have to look at what's best for our school and our student body.”

Auburn leads the holiday series, 34-8, with the Rockets winning the last 13 straight and 21 of the last 22. The Pirates last won in 1999 when they defeated Auburn, 25-0. Half of Oxford's wins in the series came when the Pirates took four out of five from 1987-91. Oxford has only scored more than one touchdown against the Rockets four times in the past 13 years.

“We had no say in this matter and we're very disappointed,” Auburn coach Jeff Cormier said. “It's the end of a 42-year contest and the reason behind it was solely Oxford's feelings and not ours.”

Cormier said he was more disappointed about the timing of the news, as many schools have locked down their schedules for next year.

“If this happened earlier, there were options for us,” Cormier said. “We were approached by two different schools as late as December about playing on Thanksgiving, but we didn't want to leave Oxford hanging.”

Cormier said Auburn was also approached two years ago by another Central Mass. school about playing on Thanksgiving, but was talked out of it by Oxford.

“We were told Oxford was in the process of rebuilding and they were going to get new coaches in the building and they wanted the game to remain,” Cormier said. “Last week they had a decision to make and they made it. What they asked us to do, they made a different decision.”

Sutton and Blackstone-Millville will begin their first varsity football seasons next fall, but while Blackstone-Millville played a junior varsity schedule last year to prepare, Sutton did not. Doldoorian said he was surprised when Sutton school officials approached him about a possible move a few weeks ago.

There are a few links to the two schools, as Doldoorian is also the girls' basketball coach at Sutton and Sutton High athletic director Jeff Parcells is a former football coach at Oxford High. The two schools also had a co-op agreement to play football until Sutton started their own program and will co-op with Douglas. Doldoorian said those relationships were not a factor in their decision to end the rivalry with Auburn.

“We didn't know they were available, but when they ended up with a football team they came to us about playing on Thanksgiving,” Doldoorian said. “It's unfortunate, but we were involved in a non-competitive game. This (Auburn/Oxford game) has been about a tradition, but not a rivalry.”

Doldoorian said games have been getting so out of hand in recent years, he watched late arriving fans turn around and leave when they realized what the score was.

“They'd get in line for a ticket, but see it was 21-0 with four minutes left in the first quarter and they'd leave and go home without buying a ticket,” Doldoorian said. “It's unfortunate, but Thanksgiving Day has lost a lot of its meaning here.”

Doldoorian said Auburn has been a first-class school and never run the score up on them, but he had to look out for the future of his football program. Doldoorian said the enrollment numbers of his school have dropped so significantly in recent years, he has applied for waivers to get middle school players for his soccer programs.

“After having 42 years of football together, we are now back at the level of a first-year team with 10 kids and 12 freshmen coming back for next year,” Doldoorian said, “I don't think there's a football person out there that would guarantee those 22 kids would be coming out there next year.”

Unfortunately Oxford High's decision leaves Auburn out in the cold.

“Now it looks like our kids won't have a chance to play on Thanksgiving next year, and that's a shame,” Cormier said.